For one night, Mikki Moore “was far and above the star,” according to Nets coach Lawrence Frank. But for the overall health and well-being of the Nets’ season, there is nothing this side of “Nenad Krstic is healthy” that the Nets long to hear more than news Richard Jefferson can play like Richard Jefferson.

For a second straight night, Jefferson did just that.

Jefferson, whose right ankle has been an issue all season, again had spring, aggression and production as he completed his first back-to-back 20-point games of the season, scoring 23 in a 100-92 Meadowlands triumph over Minnesota that also contained a superlative effort by Moore.

“It warms up early in warm-ups. When I first go out there, it’s a little stiff,” said Jefferson. “It goes up, peaks, then comes down. That’s when things get worse. But tonight it was great. It felt good. . . . The Miami game may have given me more confidence to go out and play more aggressive, the way I normally do.”

Jefferson, who scored 22 Friday in Miami, added six rebounds and five assists to his totals last night.

“RJ, again offensively he was great. Defensively he was right there,” Jason Kidd (19 points, 8 assists) said. “He made it tough on whoever he was guarding.”

So did Moore, who spent much of his night against Kevin Garnett. How good was Moore in his Nets-high 20-point, 9-of-9 shooting, eight-rebound night against the team he auditioned for out of college (and didn’t make)? The crowd chanted “Mike-ee Moore, Mike-ee Moore.” Then teammates gave a locker-room ovation.

“Since I’ve been here we’ve had a lot of success and I can only remember three, four times when the crowd chanted somebody’s name,” Jefferson said.

As proud as Moore was of his perfect shooting night, limiting Garnett to 5-of-14 shooting and 17 points supplied Moore with a bigger rush.

“Playing good defense, holding him to 5-for-14 is the biggest thing. Because if I didn’t go 9-for-9, someone else on our team would pick up and score for us,” said Moore. “It’s hard to stop KG. He’s long, can shoot the ball and has 17,000 moves on that block.”

Said Garnett, “They don’t run a lot of things for him, but on what they did, he was pretty effective.”

So the Nets, with Vince Carter tossing in 14 points and the bench playing significant minutes – like the 5:01 in the second quarter when Eddie House lit the joint for nine points – won a season high second straight game for the fifth time this season. It was also only the second time in seven tries they have won on the tail end of back-to-back sets.

“Our ability to defend as a unit [and], move the ball as a unit, contributions from different guys, a lot of energy, effort,” said Carter, assessing the keys to the two victories. “We haven’t played perfect basketball, by any means, but we’ve played well enough to win, and that’s all that matters. We’re not trying to play perfect. We’re trying to play well enough to win.”

The Nets found daylight in the third quarter, using an 8-2 run that included a Moore jump hook and baskets by Kidd, Carter and Jefferson for a 69-62 lead. At the start of the fourth, 3-pointers by Kidd and Jefferson stretched the lead to 10.

“We believe we’re playing the right way, playing better,” Jefferson said. “It’s a matter of getting consistent.”